Date: 12/06/2004

William J. Reckmeyer, professor of leadership and systems in the Department of Anthropology, and Senior Fellow at Burns Academy of Leadership at the University of Maryland, has been appointed Chief Systems Scientist for the U.S. Department of Defense's new Systems-of-Systems Engineering Center of Excellence. Reckmeyer is leading a team from around the country that is part of a DOD-wide transformation effort to develop more integrative approaches to strategic planning and operations in national strategy, homeland security, maritime port security, critical infrastructure protection, and other selected agency programs. Contact Reckmeyer at reckmeyer@sbcglobal.net.

Assistant Professor Winncy Du, mechanical and aerospace engineering, received the 2004 Diversity and Outreach Award from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers at its recent international conference in Anaheim. Du was honored for her work as the ASME-SJSU Student Section advisor and for her leadership of ASME’s Santa Clara Section, which was recognized as the leading section in the United States for four consecutive years. Under her guidance, the SJSU student section grew from 21 members in 2002 to 130 members in 2004. More than 80 percent of those members are women and underrepresented minorities. Du reports that the students have also won a number of first, second and third place awards in Region IX student competitions. Contact Du at wdu@email.sjsu.edu.

Merrilyn Tuma, associate professor of communicative disorders and sciences, recently spent two weeks in Vietnam on a medical mission trip with Project Vietnam. The team provided surgical treatment for 55 patients, ages six months to 20 years of age, with cleft palate and related facial birth defects, and Tuma performed the speech therapy for all of the patients. She says the project will be ongoing and she hopes to generate fundraising and include SJSU students in future trips. Tuma has also developed a Vietnamese text for speech development. The department intends to further develop its training program for Vietnamese-speaking language pathologists. Contact Tuma at drtuma@comcast.net.